Tondropolis: the Personal Files





I'm a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside, where I study medieval literature, the Renaissance, and comics. My outside interests include getting used to a new house, keeping my dog exercised, and doing a whole lot of gaming. When I can I like to do additional writing and I've worked in a number of formats from comic books to screenplays, short stories, novels and poetry.

I earned my Bachelor's in English at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1990, spending one semester in London as part of a University Abroad program. There, I discovered The Economist, toured the British Museum, and interviewed Alan Moore. I also made many good friends whom, through no fault of theirs, I failed to keep in contact with. Seven years were spent out of academia while I worked in retail bookstores first as assistant manager and then as manager of Book Warehouse. When the company decided to open a store in Las Vegas I made my second move to that city (the first being when I was a kid of 8). It didn't take long for me to realize what I liked about bookselling was books, not selling, so I handed the store off to my assistant manager and moved back in with my folks in Riverside, California to make a stab at being a freelance author.
Jason's picture Hero Games was using my Broken Kingdoms setting as the foundation for their new Fantasy Hero line, but since Hero went belly-up not long after, my castle-in-the-sky collapsed quickly into sand. Though I manned the shelves at a local Barnes & Noble for a while, I found a more interesting job teaching freshman English at San Gorgonio High School in San Bernardino. I was in my first semester there when I met Nicole Freim at a party in Vegas, while I was visiting friends.

It was Nicole that brought me back to academia, since she was in the middle of a Masters degree at the time. I moved back  to Vegas (again) and began taking my first graduate courses: Chaucer (with John Bowers), Medieval Epic (with Norma Engberg), Medieval history and a course on the history of the Nazi Holocaust. After a couple of presentations at academic conferences like the Popular Culture Conference and the Kalamazoo Medieval Congress I realized it was possible to make a living talking and writing about my favorite thing: comic books. Since then, there has been no looking back. Nicole and I married (in Las Vegas, of all places) and I applied to a number of graduate programs; although I was accepted to some, I decided to take a chance and try to get in at the University of Wisconsin, Madison where I was officially on the waiting list. Nicole had been accepted at the nearby Milwaukee campus for her Ph.D. program, so we moved to Wisconsin where I spent a couple of years. Madison would not admit me so, after a year's worth of Old English and translating Beowulf, working at Pegasus Games, I re-applied to UC Riverside and moved to California while Nicole remained behind to finish her own program in Milwaukee.

At UCR I have had the good fortune to work with amazing people like Stanley Stewart (editor of The Ben Jonson Journal and now the chair of my dissertation committee), John Ganim, Deborah Willis,  Robert Essick (one of the masterminds behind The Blake Archive) and John Briggs. I have continued to write and present on comics, medieval lit, and the connection between them. My essay Camelot in Comics was included in the anthology King Arthur in Popular Culture (Elizabeth Sklar, Don Hoffman, editors) and my edition of Alan Moore's poem cycle Angel Passage was printed in a recent issue of the International Journal of Comic Art. Last year I was interviewed by the good people at Sequential Tart, where I got a chance to speculate on the intersection of comics and academia. I present annually in the Comics and Comics Arts section of the Popular Culture Association as well as at the Comic Arts Conference in San Diego and other conferences as I am able.

Nicole and I have both passed our Ph.D. exams and now all that remains to us is the dissertation. While we put that off, we spend a lot of time playing with our dogs, Percy and Byron. I've also found some personal satsifaction publishing game material through my start-up TPK Productions.

The Fab Four

 Nicole and I recently fostered a group of four puppies from the local chapter of the Humane Society. They were awfully cute, but I gave them nicknames  before I realized all but one were girls. All four are currently looking for good homes, so if you are looking for a loyal and loving companion who also happens to be absolutely adorable, here they are:



jr

Hazel

(aka "Junior")

I’m the one with a little skinnier face, big ears, and big eyes.  I’m also the loudest one of the bunch, but with this many siblings, can you blame me?  I like tug toys (I was especially fond of Nicole's ponytail) and chasing my siblings.  I am a little bit anxious, so I’m looking for an owner who will be patient with me while I adjust.  I’m very affectionate, though, and can’t wait to find a new home!

lefty


Hope

(aka "Lefty")

I’m the one with one ear that folds over a little.  (I know, the right ear folds, but “Righty” sounds silly).   I’m not as rambunctious as some of my siblings.  I like to get a toy and curl up in a lap to chew on it.   That way I get petted, which I really like!  I’m looking for an owner who can spend some time cuddled up with me and will enjoy a few licks.

rolly


Harry

(aka "Rolly", as in rolly-polly)

Both my ears are floppy and I’m a little big-boned.  I’m a little protective of my food and I do like to stalk my siblings and pounce on them.  But I also take my toy chewing very seriously.  My owner will probably need to do some training with me if he/she wants to be the alpha dog.  But take a look in my big dark eyes and you’ll know I’m worth it!

goldie


Hallie

(aka "Goldie")

My face is a slightly darker tan and my nose is more brown than black.  I am very curious and I like to watch what’s going on.  I also like balls and leading my siblings in circles as they chase me.  I’m a decent climber and I look forward to exploring lots of places.  I hope to find an owner who likes to explore, too.  I’m quieter than some of my siblings, but I like to snuggle and give gentle kisses.

The Reading List

 Some people make Christmas lists. Others make "want lists" on Amazon.com or register at the local department store. My reading list is made up of books I want to read, many of which are out of print but still available thanks to the miracle of online booksellers. If you want to get me a Christmas/birthday/whatever present, but reject gift cards as "so 2003", then I promise you any of these titles are surefire hits.

The reading list got its shameless start from Ken Hite's "Eliptony Core Sample." I continue to add new titles and drop old ones from the list as they find their way to my shelves. This list is current as of March 22, 2006.
  • Yates, Frances, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (Ark, 1983).
  • Webb, James. The Flight From Reason
  • Waite, A.E., The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (Samuel Weiser, 1983 (orig. pub. 1911)).
  • Turner, Robert, Elizabethan Magic
  • Temple, Robert, The Sirius Mystery (rev. ed. Destiny Books, 1998).
  • Stoyanov, Yuri. The Other God: Dualist Religions from Antiquity to the Cathar Heresy.
  • Spence, Lewis, An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (Strathmore Press, 1959).
  • Sherman, William H., John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance.
  • Saler, Benson, Ziegler, Charles A., and Moore, Charles B., UFO Crash at Roswell: The Genesis of a Modern Myth (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997).
  • Ravenscroft, Trevor, The Spear of Destiny (Bantam, 1974).
  • Pynchon, Thomas, The Crying of Lot 49 (Bantam, 1967).
  • Picknett, Lynn, and Prince, Clive, The Stargate Conspiracy (Little, Brown, & Co., 1999).
  • Partner, Peter, The Murdered Magicians: The Knights Templar and their Myth
  • Ovason, David, The Secret Architecture of Our Nation's Capital (HarperCollins, 2000).
  • Jess Nevins. The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana. (Monkeybrain Books, 2005)
  • Moore, William L., The Philadelphia Experiment: Project Invisibility (Grosset & Dunlap, 1979).
  • Morton, Chris, and Thomas, Ceri Louise, The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls
  • Matthews, John, and Potter, Chesca, eds., The Aquarian Guide to Legendary London (Aquarian Press, 1990).
  • Krassa, Peter, Father Ernetti's Chronovisor (New Paradigm Books, 2000).
  • Hutton, Ronald, The Triumph of the Moon (Oxford University Press, 1999).
  • Hancock, Graham, The Sign and the Seal, (Simon & Schuster, 1992).
  • Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology.
  • Gardner, Martin, Fads & Fallacies in the Name of Science (Dover, 1957).
  • Flint, Valerie, The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe.
  • Douglas, Adam, The Beast Within: Man, Myths and Werewolves (Orion, 1993).
  • Cohn, Norman. Europe's Inner Demons and The Pursuit of the Millennium
  • Coleman, Loren, Mysterious America (Faber and Faber, 1983)
  • Bruce, Christopher. Arthurian Name Dictionary. Garland Press.
  • Bradley, Michael, Holy Grail Across the Atlantic (Hounslow Press, 1988)
  • Begg, Ean, The Cult of the Black Virgin (Penguin Arkana, 1996)
  • Baigent, Michael, and Leigh, Richard, The Temple and the Lodge (Arcade, 1989)
  • Anderson, George K., The Legend of the Wandering Jew (Brown Univ. Press, 1965)
  • Agrippa, Cornelius, Three Books of Occult Philosophy